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The DMCA causes huge costs for search engines because of all of the bogus takedowns, which people can send without any consequences. Congress could fix that asp

The DMCA causes huge costs for search engines because of all of the bogus takedowns, which people can send without any consequences. Congress could fix that aspect of the law, but has chosen not to.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> The DMCA causes huge costs for search engines because of all of the bogus takedowns The search engine could ignore all takedowns and be in exactly the same situation as it would be without the DMCA; the safe harbor provision isn't a mandate on them, it is a benefit to them. They deal with takedowns because the cost of doing so is less than the cost of copyright liability they would have without the DMCA, which means the DMCA is saving them money, not imposing a cost.
- greglindahl 9y ago
  Er, ok, I formed my opinion as to the relative liability cost as the executive in charge of DMCA of a search engine that raised $63mm. I dislike appeals to authority on HN as much as the next person, but you sure seem confident at knowing something about small search engines that only a small number of people actually have experience with. And if you've never gotten a DMCA takedown from Perfect 10, you probably don't understand the true terror of the DMCA process.
- AnthonyMouse 9y ago
  > The search engine could ignore all takedowns and be in exactly the same situation as it would be without the DMCA; the safe harbor provision isn't a mandate on them, it is a benefit to them. They deal with takedowns because the cost of doing so is less than the cost of copyright liability they would have without the DMCA, which means the DMCA is saving them money, not imposing a cost. You're treating the safe harbor and notice and takedown as indivisible when they obviously aren't. Conditioning the safe harbor on notice and takedown is a huge cost compared to the alternative used in CDA 230.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > You're treating the safe harbor and notice and takedown as indivisible when they obviously aren't. They obviously are both part of the DMCA, so you can't say that the DMCA imposes costs based on the notice and takedown condition for the safe harbor, because ignoring that condition leaves the host in the same position they would be in without the DMCA. You can say that the notice and takedown requirement reduces the cost savings of the safe harbor compared to the hypothetical policy of an unconditional safe harbor, or one with alternative sets of conditions, but that's a very different claim than the DMCA imposing costs.
    - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
      > They obviously are both part of the DMCA, so you can't say that the DMCA imposes costs based on the notice and takedown condition for the safe harbor, because ignoring that condition leaves the host in the same position they would be in without the DMCA. The safe harbor and the anti-circumvention rules are both part of the DMCA too, but it's silly to argue that the anti-circumvention rules don't impose net costs because if you average them together with the safe harbor it comes out somewhere near neutral. They don't cease to be divisible just because they were enacted at the same time. Otherwise you could justify anything by just finding something which is as good as the target thing is bad and lumping them together on the same side of the scale.

The DMCA causes huge costs for search engines because of all of the bogus takedowns, which people can send without any consequences. Congress could fix that aspect of the law, but has chosen not to.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> The DMCA causes huge costs for search engines because of all of the bogus takedowns The search engine could ignore all takedowns and be in exactly the same situation as it would be without the DMCA; the safe harbor provision isn't a mandate on them, it is a benefit to them. They deal with takedowns because the cost of doing so is less than the cost of copyright liability they would have without the DMCA, which means the DMCA is saving them money, not imposing a cost.

greglindahl 9y ago
Er, ok, I formed my opinion as to the relative liability cost as the executive in charge of DMCA of a search engine that raised $63mm. I dislike appeals to authority on HN as much as the next person, but you sure seem confident at knowing something about small search engines that only a small number of people actually have experience with. And if you've never gotten a DMCA takedown from Perfect 10, you probably don't understand the true terror of the DMCA process.
AnthonyMouse 9y ago
> The search engine could ignore all takedowns and be in exactly the same situation as it would be without the DMCA; the safe harbor provision isn't a mandate on them, it is a benefit to them. They deal with takedowns because the cost of doing so is less than the cost of copyright liability they would have without the DMCA, which means the DMCA is saving them money, not imposing a cost. You're treating the safe harbor and notice and takedown as indivisible when they obviously aren't. Conditioning the safe harbor on notice and takedown is a huge cost compared to the alternative used in CDA 230.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > You're treating the safe harbor and notice and takedown as indivisible when they obviously aren't. They obviously are both part of the DMCA, so you can't say that the DMCA imposes costs based on the notice and takedown condition for the safe harbor, because ignoring that condition leaves the host in the same position they would be in without the DMCA. You can say that the notice and takedown requirement reduces the cost savings of the safe harbor compared to the hypothetical policy of an unconditional safe harbor, or one with alternative sets of conditions, but that's a very different claim than the DMCA imposing costs.
  - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
    > They obviously are both part of the DMCA, so you can't say that the DMCA imposes costs based on the notice and takedown condition for the safe harbor, because ignoring that condition leaves the host in the same position they would be in without the DMCA. The safe harbor and the anti-circumvention rules are both part of the DMCA too, but it's silly to argue that the anti-circumvention rules don't impose net costs because if you average them together with the safe harbor it comes out somewhere near neutral. They don't cease to be divisible just because they were enacted at the same time. Otherwise you could justify anything by just finding something which is as good as the target thing is bad and lumping them together on the same side of the scale.